Planning Your Program

Making Courses Count (double)

The General History Option totals 42 units. General Education is 48 units, the Cultural Diversity requirement is 6 units, and the American Institution and Ideals requirement is 6 units, making a total of 102 units. Since 120 units is the minimum number required for graduation, you have a significant number of units beyond the major and other graduation requirements to “spend” in other ways. What’s more, with careful planning the total number of required courses can be reduced even further: courses in the General History Option may be double-counted to meet up to 15 units of General Education plus the 6 Cultural Diversity units. In other words, you can have as many as 42 units to use for a second major, a minor (or two), study abroad, personal fulfillment, or even more history courses!

General Education

You may count as many as 15 units of the 48 required for General Education toward your History-Social Science Preparation Program. Within the 39 unit Core and Breadth portion of GE, Areas D2 and D3 are met by courses that are required in the General History Option, (D2 - HIST 103; D3 - HIST 110), as well as by a number of electives. Area D1 may be met by taking HIST 230; Area C3 may be met by taking HIST 261. There are also eight upper division pathways in which one history elective course may be taken and double-counted.

Cultural Diversity

The University's six unit Cultural Diversity requirement is easily met within the context of the General History Option. HIST 261, 270, 271, 275, 276, 362, 372, 375, 376, 378, 380, 381, and 382 all satisfy the Global Cultures portion of the requirement; they may also be taken as electives. The US Diversity portion of the requirement may be met by making HIST 341 one of your elective courses.

Planning A Schedule

You should meet with a History Department advisor every semester to review your status and plan your schedule for the upcoming semester. If you are a first-time freshman, you should take a look at the Four Year Graduation Plan (xlxs) (XLS) to see a model schedule you can follow to insure graduation within four years.